Teach English in Shiqiao Zhen - Zibo Shi

How to instill a love of reading in children? this is a complex topic now that some people put this charge to teachers while others to parents. Truth is, is that both have a very influential guidance on how giving a child the love to read. Usually the guidance starts at home when they are toddlers. Scientists have proven that reading to a child since birth and eventually when they get older discussing the book with them increases the child’s IQ and automatically instills a love for reading in them. Also, children who learn to read independently become better readers and score higher in academically inclined matters. Reading to a child since a very young age will open their interest towards books in the future. Parents can start with toy books or cloth books for toddlers and then start upgrading difficulty with age. Reading time can be any time, instead of sitting a child in front of a TV or a video game you could give them a book that you know will interest them. Maybe with pictures or textures, anything is good this will also maintain them occupied and concentrated, even more than being in front of technology. Ritualizing reading at home will make everything easier and eventually they will do it by themselves. Now let’s speak from a teachers perspective, as said before reading should already be a part of a child’s daily family life, but how about when they are off to school, how can we maintain “house reading” and “school reading” equally as fun and interesting? First of all, a child will never really read something that they are not interested in, if the teacher assigns something that is too boring or difficult it is most likely that the class will not respond well, and this goes with all ages. So… how can you cultivate a love for reading in students? A good way to start is to figure out what is good enough for your students in a library visit, you can go alone and ask the librarian for the list of favorite books that are usually for children the age of your students and try them out, going with a class of children to a library can be difficult (specially if they are younger) but you can always bring a young reader, local author or volunteer parent to visit a class. Your job as a teacher is also to motivate, you can do this by sharing your reading experiences and let your students share with you. Sell the idea of reading to your students and set the example, always have a book in hand or near you, create a book friendly environment. Always try to make reading fun and entertaining. You should not push children to read tough, teaching them to rigorously can take away the fun and make them feel attacked or dumb and that will follow them forever taking away the desire to read. You can teach them with various entertaining strategies and activities. Letting a child learn at their own pace is good, maybe not exactly for the teacher but if you maintain them at a certain level (not to easy and not to hard) it will be easier to teach a class, that can be achieved with the teachers work book. Pick something challenging but at the same time you know they can read. Give them activities like gap fills or vocabulary or tell them to give a synopsis as best as they can, you can make groups and tell them to guess each other’s books. There is a variety of activities. Invite students to socialize around reading, you can do so by hosting a book club or reading in groups. Allow them to read the whole book before discussing it and if it is possible let them choose their own books, if this is to complicated make a list of books they can choose from for class discussion. Introducing them to a book series is also very good now that the second they finish the fist book of the series they will most likely want to read the rest. In conclusion, reading should always be fun for children this way when they grow up the love for books and reading will not fade away. Parents and teachers are both responsible for children to love reading and learning and they should set the example to do so as much as they can.